Getting all of this decent quality art together is really pushing my motivation levels. The style across the two areas I've done so far seems to mesh well. The illusion of a cohesive world makes is really fun to keep on producing more! I spent a bit of time adding more ruin-like tiles to the cave set; but it's not exciting enough to warrant another screenshot. What does, though, is something completely different: level importing.

Throwing together the base layout for a level can take some time with the current state of the editor. To remedy that problem I implemented the ability to import a black and white image for use as the base layout for a level. Basically you draw how the structure of the level should be...




In the editor, simply import the image and a level is created that matches exactly what you've drawn. Of course, none of the details are fleshed out, but it surely helps in throwing stuff together very quickly.




In addition to image/level importing, I finally got around to something I've been putting off for a long time: water. Water works exactly as you would expect from a platformer style game. When in the water, the player will move slower than normal. They will also be able to jump very high. The water uses a nice texture that can easily be swapped, can fade in and out, an also allows for bubbles to be placed inside it that rise to the surface. All in all it's pretty feature-full, but there are a few things missing like slowly raising and lowering the water level over time, creating a splashing animation when something enters the water, and adding a "rough" edge so things don't look so perfectly aligned.

I hit a bit of a block with the grassy tiles, so I decided to shelf it for now and pick up on the cave tiles. First up was a new background for cave areas. This came out looking incredibly good--especially in action. I think what really makes it is the illusion of depth with the pillars and stalagtite/mites.




In addition to background there are a good set of new tiles. The easiest to throw together were the "background" tiles that match the same foreground tiles, except in a darker tone. They look really good when put together and also add that good sense of depth.




On top of the rocky tiles are a new set of dirt/sandy tiles. These need the most love (especially to not look like there is a big brown whale floating through a bunch of the tiles). The frontmost pillars are doing well. The background pillars need to be less flat, which shouldn't take much time.




And lastly, a shot of the halo in the cave tileset, where it actually makes sense. Likely this halo will be used very, very sparingly. I'm still figuring out exactly how I'm going to want it to work--including how it will be triggered, etc.

Once again, a bit more artwork. This time around I went a little quicker than usual, so it doesn't look incredigood. It's not incredibad, either. I added some more rocky tiles and a bunch of transitionary tiles between those and the normal grassy tiles. It could use some love, but it works for now.




I got the coding itch and decided to throw in a neat little feature: blackout (or what I like to call the "darkness halo"). It will essentially dim the screen to black except for a small little halo around the player, to simulate dark areas. For now it's toggled via keypress, but plans are to allow certain areas of the map to toggle this mode when appropriate (like when the player walks into a cave, etc). Incredibly easy to implement, yet the payoff is very big.

Slowly picking away at the grassy tileset. Some of the new bits needs a little work, but for the most part they get the point across. The tree needs the most love, especially the canopy.

Happy new year! It's been a busy month away from any kind of development with the holidays and vacationing. No new code, but I've been putting together some more tiles to make things look lively.

First, a new tileset for a cavernous part of the game world; rather plain without any decorative tiles, but the base set for building "ground" is there.




Second, some additions to the grassy tileset:

For better or for worse, it's about time I actually start talking about my current project in the open. I guess you could say "current" is a bit of a misnomer, considering that I've been working on this little guy for something near two years. Instead of saying "I did some work on 'the game'" or "I added some stuff to my 'current project'" I can now easily just say: I've been doing some work on Neverfall.

Of course, I've set up a generic page with a few screenshots, but you won't find much information there. I don't plan on simply revealing everything about what the game will entail, but I will say this: it will be a platformer based on exploration and gaining powerups. It's actually kind of amazing to see the progress it's made over time. Today I was looking at some old videos I took showcasing interesting gameplay mechanics. I noticed that, while progress is slow, the game really is coming together. There is still a boatload of stuff to do.. All in due time!

The thing I'm most excited about regarding this is that now I can post screenshots. The latest and greatest: